1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to a medication delivering device and medication dispensing device and system using the same, and more particularly to a negative pressure type medication delivering device and medication dispensing device and system using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there have been remarkable advancements in medical and biotechnological research. Also, people have put more emphasis on daily health care and are concerned with the health care system, and the pharmacological industry has developed very rapidly. From the high cost of prescription medicines, patent medicines, and nutritional supplements (vitamins, minerals, and vegetation nutriments), medication products play an important role in people's daily lives.
Due to the lack of precise and reliable devices for recording a patient's medicine taking history and determining if the timing, dose and variety of the medicine taken by the patient are correct, although every medication company keeps developing new medicines, the clinical result may not be as desired. Also, in the present medical system, doctors cannot effectively adjust the dose and variety of the medicine by monitoring the medicine taking history of the patient. In addition, since people can easily get prescription medicines, patent medicines, and nutrition supplements from pharmacies and hospitals, the misuse of the medicine is getting worse. Harm or even death can happen to patients because they do not take the medicine in the prescribed manner, leading to great displeasure for the family members.
At present, the health and safety department in the government and medical insurance companies have an urgent need for preventing the waste of medication products and ensuring that patients recover from their diseases by taking the medication. Moreover, an instant and accurate medical management method should be implemented for increasing the safety of medicine taking by people.
A few medication technologies used for dispensing medication are disclosed in several patents. The drug filling machine in U.S. Pat. No. 5,946,883 has a number of rotatable feeders containing different drugs. When dispensing, different drugs are withdrew from the feeders and collected together. The assembly of the drug filling machine is very complicated and used only by the hospitals and large-scale pharmacies.
The medication dispensing and monitoring system in U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,257 has a medication dispensing controller for controlling the dispensing of medication that is stored in the carriages. Each of the carriages has a rotating device used for dispensing the medication by pushing or rotating. Since the carriages and the rotating devices used for different medicines are manufactured according to the sizes and shapes of the medication, the medication dispensing and monitoring system has a high manufacturing cost and is inconvenient for users.
The automatic medication dispenser in U.S. Pat. No. 6,330,957 has a circular shaped and rotatable medication cassette with perpendicularly mounted fins extending radically from the center. When the fins rotate to a particular angle, the medicine is released from the cassette. However, a prescribed dose of medicine has to be put into the cassette manually, and the human errors and labor spent on dispensing medicine cannot be reduced.
The smart medicine container in US patent No. 20060124655 is capable of dispensing medicine automatically at prescribed times and alarming the patients via a local audio or visual alert after a dose of medicine has been dispensed. However, the medicine container can only be used for dispensing one variety of medicine. Also, it needs a two-stage transmission device and several sensors for detecting whether a dose has been dispensed or consumed. Therefore, the medicine container has a large volume, low dispensing speed, and is expensive to manufacture.
The automated pill dispenser in US patent No. 20060213921 has a number of pill chambers distributed in a rotatable circle about a hub. A vacuum tip withdraws a pill from the selected pill chamber and then moves the pill by gears, racks, etc. The structure of the pill dispenser is complicated and has to be fitted with many sensors for accurately controlling the position of the pill; therefore, its manufacturing cost is high.